The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum has officially announced their acquisition of “113 pieces of original artwork by fifteen influential underground and alternative female cartoonists, donated by friend and longtime donor Scott Jonas.”

“We are very thankful to Scott Jonas, a comic collector with a great eye,” said curator Jenny Robb. “There is so much variety in this collection, but also a common theme. Each piece is an important contribution to the documentation of contemporary women creators in our collections, and in the context of alternative and underground comics.”“

Jon Day reviews Eleanor Davis‘ You & a Bike & the Road (Koyama Press, 2017) for The New York Review of Books. The book is about Eleanor’s cross-country bike trip and is built from the diary comics she made along the way,

“On a bike the road ceases to be an abstraction on the map but becomes a physical reality. There’s something inherently cinematic about the way you take in your surroundings on a bike, too, with sweeping pans, lingering close-ups, jump cuts as the lights change and you roll into gear. Perhaps one reason there are so few truly great films about cycling (Jørgen Leth’s documentary about the Paris-Roubaix one-day classic, A Sunday in Hell, and Sylvain Chomet’s animated The Triplets of Belleville being notable exceptions) is because the act of cycling—just sitting in the saddle and watching the world roll by—is itself more dynamic than any film can convey. …

Comics lend themselves to representing how a cyclist sees: the flatness of the bird’s-eye-view map set in contrast to the scene-by-scene illustrations of Davis’s daily experience. We are pulled into Davis’s perspective, seeing from her position on the road as well as from a close third-person view as if slightly above.“

For those readers who may not know, Becky Cloonan was the first woman to draw Batman in the main series, when she was a guest artist on an issue in 2012. Check out some of her pages and her thoughts on the project HERE.

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On The Comics Beat David Nieves reviews Becky Cloonan‘s upcoming collection By Chance or Providence (Image Comics, July 26th 2017). Containing three stories previously self-published by Becky, and with colors provided by Lee Loughridge, the collection startled and impressed the reviewer with it’s emotional intensity.

“Getting back to what makes these tales unique. First, they aren’t for everyone. While they could certainly appeal to the crowd reading Gotham Academy, it’s not likely they’ll land with the audience reading Cloonan’s Punisher run. It speak’s to her ability as a well-rounded storyteller to be able to branch out and have created Shakespearean tales like these then move on to more traditional comics. The weight these characters carry is conveyed, not only through Cloonan’s sparse and effective use of dialogue but through the raw emotions the eyes everyone in these tales possesses.

By Chance or Providence is your chance to read what goes on in the mind of a true metal loving storyteller like Becky Cloonan. Love stories that combine poignant comic style with rich dark Castlevaniaesque lore in a way that could only happen in these pages.“

Emily Flake has a comic strip in The New Yorker titled Things I’m Afraid My Daughter Will Be Doing in 2026. See one example above – for the rest, go HERE.

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Karen Green was on NPR’s “Meet the Expert” recently, talking about her two passions – ancient and medieval history, and comics. Karen Green is the Curator for Comics and Cartoons at Columbia University, and the Librarian for Ancient and Medieval History, so she certainly is an expert – check out the conversation HERE.

You can read more about Karen’s “life in comics” by perusing Nick Sousanis’ 6 page story on her – HERE.

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Glynnis Fawkes

Glynnis Fawkes details her daughter’s struggle with picking an outfit from a pile of clothes that may have once, maybe even last week, contained clothes we liked… – something we can all relate to – on Mutha Magazine HERE.

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Ulli Lust‘s most recent The Simple Stroll is pictured above. These strips appear in the English language German magazine EXBERLINER. Ulli collected the strip into a small riso booklet and brought copies to TCAF this year, so perhaps you will bump into a copy somewhere! Otherwise, keep up with the strip HERE.

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Sally Ingraham, Audra Stang, and M. S. Harkness

M. S. Harkness was visiting Pittsburgh this past week, here for a Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency. She checked out the Pittsburgh Comics Salon on Wednesday and got to meet some of the local zine and comics makers, and hung out with Audra Stang (a new member of the Pittsburgh scene!) and myself throughout her time in town. It’s great to have this kind of energy moving through the city, and the conversations that come out of meetings of minds like these are what keeps the form vibrant and evolving.

We here at Comics Workbook work hard to bring you the best comics news from around the world. We're proud of what we do. If you'd like to share the news you find here, please credit www.comicsworkbook.com. Thanks.

Sally is a cartoonist, educator, and journalist based in Pittsburgh, PA. She makes comics about Pittsburgh and bird watching, and co-writes the "Suzy and Cecil" daily strip (with Gabriella Tito). She facilitates the Comics Workbook Rowhouse Residency, is a managing editor of the CW Daily News, and runs the CW Roller Derby "of the mind" League. She is focused on documenting the current and historic place of women in the comics industry, is working to build the Women's Comics Library, and is developing a comics curriculum by and for girls.